Longtime Berkeley activist Joseph Anderson weighs in on the ongoing debate around Occupy Oakland on the issue of nonviolence vs. the use of Black Bloc style tactics. He weighs in on the recent debate between Chris Hedges and Occupy Oakland organizer Kristof Lopaur.

The Occupy movement, Anderson says, cannot have both a diversity of people and a ”diversity of tactics” at this time – and the movement can’t shortcut the process of attaining, and retaining, the first by jumping to the second.

There is a brilliant commentary from Paulo Halm (brazilian movie maker) below. Because, if it was Yoani Sánchez handcuffed to a post in Havana and on hunger strike in front of the ´Palace of the Revolution´ asking from the world justice and democracy, Globo (and all of the mainstream press), in the face of any embargo, would send a correspondent to Cuba sending live feeds from the locale or going even further still without and loosing the realism, would make, let us see.... a reality TV show! But no, my friends, Pedro is only a Brazilian asking for justice and democracy in the most democratic country in South America, the location of Rio +20, the Olympic Games as well as being the 5th largest economy in the world.

If Pedro Rios Leão was Cuban, today he would be on the front page of O Globo newspaper and would be called a martyr for liberty by Mervais and Leitões (brazilian journalists). It would be a theme and story highlighted on the national news provoking tears of solidarity from Patricia Poeta (another brazilian journalist). On Globo news, Willian Waack and Arnold Jabor, in unison, would call him a hero and even Pedro Bial would arrange a space on Big Brother Brazil in order to write a small poem in homage to the warrior. But, unfortunately, the boy is not Cuban. Pedro Rios Leão is Brazilian and is on hunger strike in front of TV Globo in protest against the station’s coverage of the massacre of the impoverished population of Pinheirinho by the military police of São Paulo. His protest is and will be solemnly ignored. How does that old song go, “The pain of the people doesn’t appear in the newspaper” much less on TV.